Garment manufacturers and cleaning stores employ polyethelene film bags for covering garments. These bags are torn off a roll containing a plurality of bags and susequently drawn by an operator over the garment which hangs on a garment hanger, suspended on a hanger hook. A somewhat complicated, time-consuming, manually controlled mechanism is presently employed to deliver the bags to the bagging station.
The present device employs a simplified mechanism using a photoelectric control unit. The film is provided with a dark spot of any configuration on each bag. It is threaded through rollers and between the photoelectric control unit and a target (retroflector). When the machine is in operation, the clerk-operator pulls down a predetermined length of film for covering a garment. As he does this, solenoids energize a clamping bar when the dark spot on the bag passes the photoelectric control unit, thereby clamping the following bag for a preset time. The solenoids are automatically de-energized after a preset time, thereby releasing the clamping bar and the next bag for the following operation.